Evening Star Newspaper, April 24, 1897, Page 21

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, APRIL WOK Js2).2e. Lee se lee) Ged sek sete) Written for The Pon DPA IW Chapter 1—Continued From Last Sat- urday. When Barker regained his room he found | that Mrs. Barker had dismissed Stacy from her mind excapt so far as to invoke Norah's in the laying out her smartest gown for dinner. “But why take all this trouble, dear?" said her simple-minded husband; “we are going to dine in a pri- talk over old | vate room so that we can | times all by ourselves. and any dress } would suit him. And, Lord, dear,” he add- | ed, a smile of quick brightening at the fancy, “If you could only just rig your- | seif up in that pretty lilac gown you used to wear at Boomville—it would be too kill- ing—and just like old times. I put it away myself in one of our trunks—I couldn't bear to leave it behind—I know just where it is. Fl—” But Mrs. Barker's restrain- | ing scorn withheld him. “George Barker, if you think I am going to let you throw away and utterly waste Mr. Stacy on us, alone, in a private room with closed doors—and I daresay you'd like to sit in your dressing gown and slippers— you are entirely mistaken. I know what is Cue, not to your old partner, but to the great Mr. Stacy, the financier, and I know what is due from him to us. No. in the great dining room, pub- if possible, at the very next those stuck-up Peterburys and their eastern friends, including that hor- rid woman, which, I'm s ought to sai- isfy yeu. Then you can talk as much as you like and as loud as you like about old times—and the louder and the more the better—but I don’t think he'll like it.” “But the exposiuleted Barker. Stacy's Just wild to see him—and we can’t bring him down to the table—though we he added, momentarily brighten- said Mrs. Barker se- walk through the big and then Mr. Stacy may come vpstair: him in his crib. But not defor orge, I do wish that tont jd not wear a t you | Would go to the barber's and have him cut | your hair and smooth out the curls. And ! for teaven’s sake, let him put some er gum or something on yo and twist it up on your cheek like Heath r it positively ar mouth hike a girl's ringle enough for me to hear people talk of your inexpe . but really I don’t want you to look school si that sitively disgraceful. And one thi When I'm talking to any bout. se don’t sit opposite to me, with delight and your mouth n. And don’t rear if by chance 1 someihing funny. And—whatever you do— don’t make eyes at me i company when- ever I happen io allude to you as I did be- fore Capt. Heath. It is positively too ri- diculcu: cthing could exceed the or with which laughing good her husband later, ne seated h one han chybby fist in the instine ciencies, when, > him and- ve jooked out of the window ping the southern tra of the distant bay and t yeasty crests. Sheets of ra lewalks with the regularity against which a few pedestri- | pping waterproots | | i He could look le: th of Montgomery t to the heights of Telegraph Hill and liscussed semaphore. It seemed its lonclier to him than the mile-long sweep | of He Tree Hill, writhing against the | mountain wind and its aeolian song. had never felt su lonely there. the inst the i optimism. ht Kitty right in eftect of his youth- In his rigid | i | | m ple t she could rself to be, but he was wiliing to ned and dixcomposed her if I wed it before ¢ © i not © char peculiarity—t | f—no more than he would | self. And behind what ke | eived was her clear, prac all th t she had di ner father! Poor, y! And she had suffered be- 1 people had conceived that h led him away in selfish spec As if he—Barker—would not ha . and it anybody—even herself—was responsible for his convictions and actions but himself. Nev- ertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his caressing hard away, he felt before. It was with a slight of humiliation, too, that he saw it | hands to the nftre hireling had never given it the lo’ lonelier thar sense when his wife came in, looking ty in her elaborate dinner toilet, he had the same conflicting emotions. He that they had a passed that eir merried life when she no to please him, and that the fashion or the rivairy of an- superior to his jame her. But he d to see that her dre: om one ef Mrs, Horncastle The Entrance of the Little Party Pro- duced a Quick Sensation in the Dining Room. most striking ones, and that {¢ did not suit ker. That which adorned the maturer wo- man did not agree with the demure and — tly austere prettiness of the young wife. But Barker forgot all this when Stacy— reserved and somewhat severe looking in evening dress—arrived with business punc- tuality. He fancied that his old partner received the anuouncement that they would dine in the public room with something of surprise, and he saw him glance keenly at Kitty in her fine array, as if he sus- eg it was her choice and understood her motives. Indeed, the young husband had found himself somewhat nervous in zegard to Stacy's estimate of Kitty: he was conscious that she was not looking ,@d acting like the old Kitty that Stacy known; it did not enter his honest THE THREE Or, The Big Strike on Heavy Tree Hill, (Copyright, 1807, by Bret Harte.) sf (se) sekserse) se ise) se koe “the e' PARTNERS; Evening Star, a WOW OWT WON WOW ONE Le. heart that Stacy had, perhaps, not appre- ciated her then, and that her present quality might accord more with his world- ly testes and experience. It was, there- fore, with a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed to sympathize not only with her, but with her hailf-rallying, half-serious attitude toward his (Barker's) inexperience and simplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in this way. Stacy would understand, as he did, her pretty willful- ness at last; she would understand what a true friend Stacy was to him. It was with unfeigned satisfaction that he fol- lowed them into dinner as she leaned upon his guest's arm chatting confidentially. He was only uneasy because her manner had @ slight ostentation. The entrance of the little party pro- duced a quick sensation throughout the dining room. Whispers passed from table to table; all heads were turned toward the great financier as toward a magnet; a few guests even shamelessly faced around in their chairs as he passed. Mrs. Barker “Don’t delay a single hour, but get a written agreement for that Ditch proper- "Barker smiled. “But I have. Got it this mn “Then you know?” ejaculated Stacy in surprise. “I only know,” said Barker, coloring, “that you said I could back out of it if it wasn’t signed, and that’s what Kitty said, too. And I thought ft looked awfully mean for me to hold a man to that kind of a bargain. And so—you won't be mad, old fellow, will you?—I thought I'd put it be- yond any question of my own good faith by having it in black and white.” He stopped, laughing and blushing, but still earnest and sincere. “You don’t think me a fool, do you?” he said, pathetically. Stacy smiled grimly. “I think, Barker, boy, that if you go to the Branch you'll have no difficulty in paying for the Ditch Property. Good night.” In a few minutes he was back at the club again before any one knew he had even left the building. As he again re- entered the smoking room he, found the members still in eager discussion about the new railway. One was saying: “If they could get an extension and carry the rcad through Heavy Tree Hill to Boom- ville they’d be all right.” “I quite agree with you,” sald Stacy. Chapter IMI. The swaying, creaking Boomville coach had at last reached the level ridge and sank forward upon its springs with a sigh of relief and the slow precipitation of the red dust which had hung in clouds around it. The whole coach, inside and out, was covered with this impalpable powder: it had poured into the windows that gaped widely in the insufferable heat; it lay thick upon the novel read by the passenger, who had for the third or fourth time during the ascent made a gutter of the half-opened book, and blown the dust away in a single puff, like the smoke from a pistol. It lay in folds and creases over the yellow silk duster of the handsome woman on the back Seat, and when she endeavored to shake it off enveloped her in a reddish nimbus. It grimed the handkerchiefs of others, and left sanguinary streaks on mopped foreheads. But as the coach had slowly climbed the summit the sun was THE EXPRESSION OF HER FACE | was pink, pretty and voluble with excite- ment; Stacy had a slight mask of reserv Barker was the cnly one natural and un- ! consctous. As the dinner progressed Barker found there was little chance for him to invoke his old partner’s memories of the past. He found, however, that Stacy had received a letter from Demorest and that he was coming home from Europe. His letters were still sad; they both agreed upon that. And then fer the first time that day Stacy looked intently at Barker with the look that he had often worn on Heavy Tree Hill. “Then you think it is the same old trou- bie that worries him?” said Barker, in an awed and ie voice. said Stacy, with an equal feeling. Mrs. Barker pricked up her pretty ears: her husband's ready sympa- thy was familiar enough, but that this -old, practical Stacy should be moved at z piqued her curiosity. “And you believe that he has never got over it?” continued Barker. “He had one chance, but he threw it away,” said Stacy, energetically. “If, in- stead of going off to Europe by himself to brood over it, he had joined me in busi- ness, he'd have been another mam” But not Demorest,” said Barker, quick- 1 “What dreadful secret is this about De- morest?” said Mrs. Barker, petulantly. “Is he ill? Both men were silent by thetr_old com- stinct. But it was Staeyg§who said No,” in a way that put any further ques- tioning at an end, and Barker wag grate- ful, and fer the moment disloyal to his Kitty, a It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention at the next tabie was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared for cent equal effect that Mrs. Horn- castle had created upon Stacy. His cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked her name. ‘Mrs. Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed. “I know it all,” said Stacy. with didactic emphasis. “Her husband was as bad as they make them. When her life had be- come intolerable with him he tried to make it shameful without him by abandoning her. She could get a divorce a dozen times over, but she won't.” “I suppose that’s what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen,” said Mrs. Herker, ironically. “I have never seen her before,” continued Stacy with business precision, “although I and two other men are guardians of her property and have saved it from the clutch- es of her husband. They told me she was handsome—and so she is.” Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, and the young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon Mrs. Horncastlé’s. She looked away with a bright color. Whereupon the saguine lsarker—perfectly convinced that she re- turned Stacy's admiration—was seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future, and saw Stacy happily united to her, and wes only recailed to the dinner before him by its end. Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in their apartments, and took an easy leave. But he grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his old fashion, and sald, “Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll talk of Phil Demorest,” and left Barker as happy as if the appointment were to confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker, who had overheard, was more dubious. “You don’t suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his siupid secret, do you?” she said, scornfully. “Per-aps not only about that,” said Bar- ker, glad that she had not demanded the seci t. “Well,” returned Mrs. Barker, as she turned away, “he might just as wall lunc here and talk about her—and see her, too." Meantime Stacy had dropped into his club, only a few squares distant. His ap- pearance created the same interest that it had produced at the hotel, but with less re- serve among his fellow members. ‘Have you heard the news?” said a dozen oo Stacy had not; he had been dining ou “That infernal swindle of a ‘Divide’ rafl- read has passed the legislature.” Stacy instantly remembered Barker's ab- surd belief in it and his reasons. He smiled and said carelessly, “Are you quite sure it's a swindle?” % There was a dead silence at the coolness of the man who had been most outspoicen against. “But,” said a voice hesitatingly, “you know it goes nowhere and to no purpose.” “But that does not prevent it, now that it's a fact, from going anywhere and to some purpose,” said Stacy, turning away. He passed into the reading room quietly, but in an instant turned and quickly de- scended by another starcase into hall, hurriedly put on his overcoat, and slipping out, was @ moment later re-entering the hotel. Here he hastily summoned Barker, who came down flushed and excited. Lay- hand on ‘@ arm in his old y, he sald; CHANGED; EAGERNESS, ANXIETY also sinking behind the Black Spur range, and with its ultimate disappearance a de- licious coolness spread itself like a wave across the ridge. The passengers drew a long bregth, the reader closed his book, the lady’ lifted the edge of the veil and delicately wiped her forehead, over which a few damp tendrils of hair were clinging. Even a distinguished-looking man who had sat as impenetrable and remote as a statue in one of the front seats moved and turned his abstracted face to the window. His deeply tanned cheeks and clearly cut fea- tures harmonized with the red dust that lay in the curves of his brown linen dust coat, and completed his resemblance to a bronze figure. Yet it was Demorest, changed only in coloring. Now, as tive years ago, his abstraction had a certain quality which the most familiar stranger shrank from disturbing. But in the gen- eral relaxation of relief the novel reader addressed him. “Well, we ain't far from Boomville row, and it’s all down grade the rest of the way. I reckon you'll be as glad to get a ‘wash up’ and a ‘shake’ as the rest of us.” “I'm afraid I won't have so early an op- portunity,"” said Demorest, with a faint, grave smile, “for I get off at the cross road to Heavy Tree Hill.” “Heavy Tree Hill,” repeated the other in surprise. “You ain't going to Heavy Tree Hill? Why, you might have gone there direct by railroad, and have been there four hours ago. You know, there’s a branch from the ‘Divide’ railroad goes there straight to the hotel at Hymettus.” “Where?” said Demorest, with a puz- zled smile. “Hymettus. That's the fancy name they've given to the water place on the slope. But I reckon you're a stranger here.” “For five years," said Demorest. “I fancy Ive heard of the railroad, although I prefer to go to Heavy Tree this way. But I never heard of a water place there be- fore.” “Why, it's the biggest boom of the year. Folks that are tired of the fogs of 'Frisco and the heat of Sacramento all go there. It's four thousand feet up, with a hotel like Saratoga, dancing and a band plays every night. And it all sprang out of the ‘Divide’ railroad and a crank named Geo. Barker, who bought up some old Ditch property and ran a branch line along its levels and made a junction named the ‘Divide.’ You can come all the way from ‘Frisco or Sacramento by rail. It’s a mighty big- thing.” . “Yet,” said Demorest, with some anima- tion, “you call the man Who originated this success a crank. I should say he was a genius.” f The other passenger shook his head. “AN sheer nigger luck. He bought the Ditch. plant afore there was the ghost of a chance for the ‘Divide’ railroad just out o” pure d—d foolishness. He expected so lit- tle from it that he hadn’t even got the agreement done in writin’ and hadn't paid for it when the ‘Divide’ railroad passed the legislature, as it never oughter done. For, you see, the blamedest cur- thing about the whole affair was that this ‘straw’ Toad of a ‘Divide,’ all pure ‘wildcat,’ was only gotten up to frighten the Pacific rail- road sharps into buying it up. And the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laid was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had been bought up,for they thought there was a big thing behind it. Even the hotel was at first simply a kind of genteel alms- house that this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners,”” “Nevertheless, ontinued Demorest, smiling, ‘you admit that it is a great suc- cess.” e said the other, a little irritated by the complacency in Demorest's sinile, “but the success isn’t his’n. Fools has ideas, and wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy’s bank be- hind it and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in ‘Frisco. Barker's out of it, I reckon. Anyhow, he couldn’t run @ hotel, for all that his wife— she that's one o’ the big ’Frisco swells now = to kelp serve in her father’s. No, sir; it's just @ fool's luck, gettin’ the firat taste and leavin’ the to others.” “I’m not sure that it’s the worst kind of luck,” returned wit 3 ith Sane Leta fo opinion only ir- an! more, especial! as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be interested in the conv: and even thetic with man was in the main @ good-natured fellow, and loyal to his friends, but this did not preclude any viru- lent criticism of others, and for a moment he hated this bronze-faced stranger, and even saw blemishes in the handsome wo- man’s beauty. “That may be your idea of an eastern man,” he said bluntly, “but I kin tell ye that Californy ain't run on Nevertheless, ‘or. smiled affably at his departing companion. “You allowed just now that you'd bin five year away. mout ye have bin?” “In Europe,” said ple: = “I reckoned ez much,” Be inter- tly at the other rogator, significant “But in what place?” “Oh, many,” said Demorest, smiling also. 24, 1897-24 PAGES. “But what place whar yc last livin’ at?” “Weil,” said Demorest, descending the steps, but lingering for a moment with his hand on the door of the coach, “oddly enough, now you remind me of it—at Hy- mettus!”” pa ae He closed the dobr and the coach rolled en, The passenger reddened, glanced in- dignantly after ee. departing figure of Demorest, and suspiciously at the others. ‘The lady was looking frém the window with @ faint smile on her fate. “He might hev given me a civil answer,” muttered the passenger, and resumed his novel. When the coach°drew‘up before Carter's, Hotel the lady got? dowh and the curiosity of her susceptibleicompanions was gratified to the extent of legrning from the register that her name was Horncastle. She was shown to a ptivate sitting room, which chanced to Be th® one which had be- longed to Mrs. Barker in the days of her maiderhood, and was the sacred, impene- trable bower to which she retired when her her dafly duties of waiting upon her fath- er’s guests were over. But the breath of custom had ed through it since then, and but little remained of its former maid- en glories except a few schoolgirl crayon drawings on the wall and an unrecognizable portrait of herself in oil, done by a wander- ing artist, and still preserved as a receipt for his unpaid bill. Of these facts Mrs. Horncastle knew nothing; she was evi- dently preoccapied, and after she had re- moved her outer duster and entered the room she glanced at the clock on the man- telshelf and threw herself with an air of resigned abstraction in an armchair in the corner. Her traveling dress, although un- vstentatious, was tasteful and well-fittting: a slight pallor trom her fatiguing journey, and, perhaps, from some absorbing thought, made her beauty still more striking. She gave even an air of elegance to the faded, worn adornments of the room, which it is to be feared it never possessed in Miss Kit- ty’s occupancy. Again she glanced at the clock. There was a tap at the door. “Come in.”” The door opened to a Chinese servant bearing a piece of torn paper with a name written on it in lieu of a card. Mrs. Horncastle took it, glanced at the name and handed the paper back. “There must be some mistake,” she said. “I do not know Mr. Steptoe.”” “No, but you know me all the same,” said a voice from the doorway as a man en- tered, coolly took the Chinese servant by the elbows and thrust him into the passage, closing the door upén him. “Steptoe and Horncastle are the same man, only I pre- fer to call myself Steptoe here. And I see you're down on the register as ‘Horncastle.’ Well, it’s plucky of you, and it’s not a bad rame to keep. You might be thankful that I have always left it to you. And if I call myself Steptoe here it's “a good blind against any of your swell friends knowing you met your husband here.” In the half-scornfui, half-resigned look she had given him en he entered there was no doubt that Mrs. Horncastle recog- nized Steptoe as the man she had come to see. He had changed little’ in the five years that had elapsed since he entered the three partners’ cabin at Heavy Tree Hill. His short hair and beard still clung to his head like curled moss or the crisp floccu- lence of astrakhan. He was dressed more pretentiously, but still gave the same idea ef vulgar strength. She- listened to him without emotion, but said, with even a deepening of scorn in her manner: “What new shame is this?” “Nothing new," he replied. “Only five years ago I was livin’ over on the bar at Heavy Tre2 Hill under the name of Steptoe, and folks here might recognize me. I was here when your particular friend, Jim Stacy—wh» only knew me as Steptoe, and doesn’t know me as Horncastle, your hus- band—for all he’s bound up my. property for ycu—made his big strike with his two partners. I was in his cabin that very night, and drank hig whisky. Oh, [ am ail right there. I left everything all right be- hind me—oniy it’s justsas well he doesn’t krow I'm Horncastle: And as the boy happened to be theredwith me—” He sicpped and lookediat her significantly. The expression af her face changed. Eagerness, anxiety and’ even fear came ito it in turn, but: always mingling with some scorn that-.dominated her. “The boy,’ she said, inta voiee that had chang- ed, too, ‘well, what about. him? You promised to tell me ail. Ali!” “Where's the money?i’ he said. ‘“Hus- band and wife are-one, I know,” he went on, with a coarse jaughy.but I don’t trust myself in these matters.” She took from a, trayeling reticule that lay beside her a rel of motes and a cham- ois leather bag of coin and laid them on the table before him..,He-examined both eare- lly. st u “All right,” he said, 2! see youtve got the checks made »eut«'to bearer.’ Your heads level, Conny..-Pity. you and me can’t agree.” “I went to the bank across the way as soon as I arrlyed,” she said, with con- temptuous directness. “{ told them I was going over to Hymettus and might want money.” He dropped into a chair before her, with his broad, heavy hands upon his knees, and looked at her with an equal, though baser, contempt, for his was mingled with a cer- tain pride of mastery and possession. “And, of course, you'll go to Hymettus and cut a splurge, as you always do. The beautiful Mrs. Horncastle. The helpless victim of a wretched, dissipated, disgraced, gambling husband. So dreadfully sad, you know, and so interesting! Could get a di- verce from the brute if she wished, but won't on account of her religious scruples. And so while the brute is gambling, swin- diing, disgracing himself®and dodging a shot here anda lynch committee there, two or three hundred tailes away, you're splurg- ing around in first-class hotels and water- ing places, doing the injured and abused, and run after by a lot of men who are ready to take my place, and, maybe, some of my reputation along with it.” “Stop!” she said, suddenly, in a voice that made the glass chandelier ring. He had risen, too, with a quick, uneasy glance teward the deor. But her outbreak passed as suddenly, and, sinking back into her chair, she said, with her previous scornful resignation, ‘‘Never mind. Go on. You krow you're lying.” He sat wn 2gain and looked at her critically. “Yes, as far as you're concerned, I was lying. I know your style. But, as you know, too, that I’d kill you and the first man I suspected, and there ain’t a judge or a jury in all Californy that wouldn't let me go free for it, and even consider, too, that it had wiped off the whole slate agin me—it's to my credit.” “I know what you men call chivalry.” she said coolly, “but I did not come here to buy a knowledge of that. So now about the child.” she ended abruptly, leaning fur- ward again with the same look of eager solicitude in her eyes. “Well, about the child—our child—though, Perhaps, I prefer to say ‘my child,’” he began, with a certain brutal frankness. “I'll tell you. But first d don’t want you to talk about buying your information of me. If I haven't told you anything before it’s because I didn’t think you oughter know. If 1 didn’t trust the child to you it’s because I didn’t think you could go shashaying about with-a child that was three years old when I’—he stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—‘made an honest woman of you—I think that’s what they call it.” “But,” she said, eagerly, ignoring the insult, “I could have. hidden it where no one but myself would have known it. I could have sent tt to-school and visited it as a relation.” “Yes,” he said, curtly, “like all women, and then blurted it out some day and made it worse.” “But,” she said, desperately, “even then, suppose I had been willing to take the shame of it! I have taken more!” “But I didn’t intend that you should, he said, roughly. “You are very careful of my reputation,” she returned’ scorn: “Not by a d—d si ye burst out, “but I care for his! ti goin’ to let any Callous as she had this last cruel blow, sp something in his co © seen before; could not in his brutal voice own contemptible honor? A hys- terical feeling ca hitherto pass- ive disgust and s it peared with his next sentgmép 4m a hase of anx- lety. “No!” ee ee ». “he had en wrong done. iy.” “What do you 7” she said, implor- ingly. “Or are you again lying? You said four years ago that he had ‘got into trouble; that was your excuse for is him me. Or was that @ lie, too?” manner cl and softened, but Rot from wny pity for his com) » but rather from in his own feel- ings. ‘ that,” he said, with a rough to his previous manner, “the wrong that was done Sie * my lookout! You want wi ee eT) Not for profit. SOSSSOSSOGSO OSH OHS OO GOON SSOOOSOOSOS 1SOOe © @ ® € ® ce) 58 every red cent you've given me tonight goes to him. And don’t you forget it.” For all his vulgar frankness, she knew he had lied to her many times before— maliciously, wantonly, complacently, but never evasively; yet thera was again that something in his mannef which told her ow telling the truth. he began, settling himself back ir, “f told you I brought him to Heavy Tree Hill. After I left you I wasn't going to trust him to no school; he knew enough for me, but when I lett those parts knew you, and got a little nearer ‘Frisco, where people might have known us both, I thought it better not to travel around with a kid of that size as his father. So I got a young fellow here to pass him off as his little brother, and look after him and board him, and I paid him a big price for it, too, you bet. You wouldn't think it was a man who's now swelling around here, the top o’ the pile, that ever took money from a brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too, but he did, and hi me was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company. “Van Loo,” said the woman, movement of disgust, “that man.” “What's the matter with Van Loo?” he said, with a coarse laugh, enjoying his wife’s discomfiture. “He speaks French and Spanish, ard you ought to hear the kid roll off the lingo he’s got from him. He's got style, and knows how to dress, and yeu ought to see the.kid bow and scrape, and how he carried himself. Now, Van Loo wesn’t exactly my style, and I reckon I don’t hanker after him much, but he served my purpose.” “And this man knows—” she said, with a shudder. “He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don’t know Horncastle nor you. Don’t you be skeert. He's the last man in the’ world who would hanker to see me or the kid again, or would dare to say that he ever had. ‘Lord! I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and his high-toped mother and sister some arternoon.” He threw himself back and laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from being genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively ap- preciation of pain in others rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed at her in the same way “And where is he now? compressed lip. “At school. Where, I don’t tell you. You know why. But he’s looked after by me, and d—d well looked after, too.” She hesitated, composed her face with an effort, parted her lips, and looked out of the window into the gathering darkness. Then after a moment she said slowly, yet with a certain precision: “And his mother? Do you ever talk to him of her? Does—does he ever speak of me?” “What do you think?” he said, comfort- ably, changing his position in the chair, and trying to read her face in the shadow. “Come, now. You don’t know, eh? Well— no. No. You understand? No. He's my friend—mine. He's stood by me through thick and thin, Run at my heels when every- bedy else fled from me. Dodged vigilance committees with me, laid out in the brush with me, with his hand in mine, when the sheriff's deputies were huntin’ me; shut his jaw close when, if he’d squealed he’d have been called another victim of the brute Horncastle. and been as petted and ca- noodled as yeu.”” It would have been difficult for any one but the woman who knew the man before her to have separated his brutish delight in paining her from another feeling she had never dreamt him capable of—an in- tense and flerce pride in his affection for his child. And it was the more hopeless to her that it was not the mere sentiment of reciprocation, but the material Instinct of paternity in its most animal form And it seemed horrible to her that the only out- come of what had been her own wild, youthful passion for this brute was this love for the flesh of her flesh, for she was more and more conscious, as he spoke, that her yearning for the boy was the yearning of an equally dumb and unreasoning mater- nity. They had met again as animals—in fear, contempt and anger of each other; but the animal had triumphed in both, When she spoke again it was as the woman of the world—the woman who had laughed two years ago at the irrepressible Barker. “It’s a new thing,” she said, lan- guidly turning her rings on her fingers, “to see you in the role of a doting father. And may I ask how long you have had this cle weakness and how long it is to ast?” To her surprise and the keen ret: delight of her sex, a conscious flush cov- ered his face to the crisp edges of his black and matted beard. For with a she said, with a prise, he eq frankness: “It’s growed upon me for the last five years—ever since I was alone with him.” He stopped, cleared his throat, and then, standing up before her, safi in his former voice, but with a more intense deliberation: “You wanter how long it will last?. Do ye? Well, are made of--when they eon | ANHE | Shipping sarsaparilla from Honduras, C. A., is like “carrying coals to Newcastle,” unless there’s a solid reason for the trouble and expense. For native sarsaparilla grows in our own door yards, and the native root is what other “sarsaparillas” are made of sarsaparilla at all. The J.C. Ayer Co. import their sarsaparilla from Honduras. WHY? They use this imported sarsaparilla root exclusively. WHY? They divide their stock of sarsaparilla*into four parts, and store each part in a separate storehouse to provide against the destruction of the stock by fire. WHY? It costs more to get and more to keep this kind of sarsaparilla; more in time, freight, labor and insurance. cause the best sarsaparilla compound must be made from the best sarsaparilla root, and that grows in Honduras only. Because the difference between “‘best” ON the bottle and best IN the bot- tle is the difference that has made Ayer’s Sarsa- parilla the standard blood purifier of the world. Ayer’s “Curebook.” A story of cures told by the cured. Free. J. C. Ayer Co., Lowell, Mass. Then WHY? Be- Sarsaparilla. eceees08 USER-BuscH BREWING ASS'N, THE LEADING BREWERY IN THE WORLD. Brewers of the Most Wholesome and Popular Beers, The Original Budweiser The Michelob The Muenchener The Faust The Anheuser The Pale Lager Served on all Pullman Dining and Buffet Cars. Served on all Wagner Dining and Buffet Cars. Served on all Ocean and Lake Steamers. Served in all First Class Hotels. Served in the Best Families. Served in all Fine Clubs. The Two Greatest Tonics, ‘‘Malt-Nutrine” and ‘‘Liguid Bread” are fecl and what he’s made me feel, and will wish himself in hell before he ever made the big strike on Heavy Tree! That's me! You hear me! Fm shoutin’! It'll last till then: It may be next week, next month, next year. But it'll come.” (To be Continued.) —_ Close to Ninety. Here now I stand, upon life’s outer verge, Close at my feet an ocean wid» and deep, Dark, sullen, silent, and without a surge, Whore earth's past myriads Me in” dreamless sleep. ‘Tis here I stand without a thrill of fear, In loneliness allied to the sublime; The broken links of love that bound ‘me here, Lie shattered on this treacherous shoal of time. But still I cling to friends who yet remain, Cling to th glorious scenes that round me Striving to stay the haste of years in vain As swifter yet the winged moments fly. ldly, I xeek the future to explore I partly know what is, but naught that is before. —JO™N HOWARD BRYANT. Willing to Be Helped Out. From the Detroit Free Press. “I'm a believer in the bicycle,” declared a lawyer of prominence the other day. “In fact, I ride one myself and derive a great deal of benefit from it, but I know of mcre than one instance where it has led to fam- ily dissension. “I was called upon professionally the oth- er day by a fine-looking, jntelligent, nicely dressed woman of about thirty-five. With- out any tears or other preliminaries she stated that she desired my services in pro- curing a divorce. “Upon what grounds, madam” “*You can give them a technical name after I have told you what they are. No couple ever lived more happily a pe Fred and myself until he brought a tandem home for our joint use. He thought it best that we should do our wheeling together, and I agreed with him. His thoughtfulaess and desire to be with me were very pleas- “To be sure.” “But all my anticipations were blasted. He developed a stubbornness that I never discovered in his character. He never pro- prepared by this Association, posed going where I wanted to go. If I had my mind set upon going to the island he went to the boulevard, and if I had a pref- erence for one street he selected another. It often occurred, too, that when one of us was anxious to go out the other was not in the mood. I cannot endure another such season.” “Did it ever occur to you, madam, that it might be wiser to give up your tandem than your husband? “Indeed, I'm not going to give up the bicycle just becayse he chooses to be a Hlayg - IL want you to commence proceed- ings. “ “Perhaps, without letting him know what you have in mind, I could persuade your husband to buy you a wheel of your own.” “Oh, if you only could! The latest ana finest. I'm sure he would; Fred’s so gener- was confident you would help me ———_ + e+ __ The Lesson in Death, Frederick Harrison. - Ané thus, Death is not really so much the summoning of those who die to a new life in a celestial realm, as it is the summoning of those who live to a new life im this earthly realm. On them now descends the maantle of an old generation. On them now falls the stress and crisis of battle. It is for them to show that the labor that has tolled so long, the love that protected them in childhood, the opportunities that now fall to them, have not been wasted, mis- spent, and turned to ne account. ‘They whom we lay in the ground are still for a time as much with us as if they were sim- ply gone on a journey, or were asleep in their bed at home. We see them not, ex- cept in thought. We hear them not, cept in memory. We take counsel of them only, by thelr warnings and tneir qualities. But in a spiritual sense they are with us still; they are in us still; they can our